UPDATE: In September 2018, UCS released an animated feature and video that explains how space-based missile defense works. Check it out here.

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Articles citing a classified 2011 report by the Institute for Defense Analysis (IDA) have mistakenly suggested the report finds that a constellation of only 24 satellites can be used for space-based boost-phase missile defense. Read More

Part 1 of this post discusses one aspect of the 2011 letter from Missile Defense Agency (MDA) to then-Senator Kyl about the IDA study of space-based missile defense. The letter raises several additional issues, which I comment on here. Read more >

This week, President Trump verbally directed General Dunford, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “to begin the process necessary to establish a Space Force as the sixth branch of the armed forces.”

Many people awaited last Sunday’s Falcon 9 launch from Cape Canaveral of a highly classified US payload. The launch had been delayed for weeks, speculation as to the satellite’s purposewas rampant, and successfully delivering national security satellites to orbit is an important part of SpaceX’s business.